Son of the One and the One
by KesAFloyd
Summary: COMPLETE. In another wrinkle to the War Without End storyline, 68 year old Ivanova, a paraplegic since the telepath war, and a half Narn telepath named G'Kem, embark on a time travel mission to ensure that Jeff Sinclair survives the Earth-Minbari war.
1. G'Kem, The One Who Must Be

G'Kem (The One Who Must Be)  
  
"Top news story: Today, the first president of the Alliance, John Sheridan, died at the age of 65."  
  
It was very old news. Ashley was getting on him for watching the dated clip again and again.  
He had met Ashley soon after arriving on Zion. A nice woman. She was an intimidating telepath if she decided to invade a normal's mind, but very nice. Still, he thought, half jokingly, the other half deadly serious, if they ever got really involved, he'd have to eventually face her parents. Ashley's abilities had manifested very early, which wasn't surprising at all given that her parents were none other than the infamous Alfred Bester, and Lucia Gerstein, not so infamous but a Psi Cop as well nonetheless. After the telepath war, the Psi Corps had fallen, but these people still held the principles of Psi Cops. Ashley had resisted any form of training by the Corps and had run away from home at age fifteen. Her parents were outraged, but even they couldn't do anything because Zion was a free world protected by the codes of the Alliance.  
The news had been just perfect to spoil G'Kem's birthday over a decade ago. It had been coming though. John Sheridan had known it as well. He had known he would die sometime in the next year or two. G'Kem had attended his funeral, admitting that he did care about him like a father.  
"G'Kem, we'll be late," she insisted, putting on her coat. "You're not being a very nice host by watching that the whole time I'm over. We will be late."  
What they would be late for was lunch with an old friend of Ashley's who she had recently bumped into on a business trip. G'Kem obediently pulled the data crystal out of the socket and put it in the crystal case.  
  
They met Ashley's friend at a restaurant.  
"This is Juanita... Juanita, my friend G'Kem."  
Juanita was a Silent One. They were rare, but not unheard of. G'Kem saw a white tiger pad up to him and purr.  
"Nice to meet you." He smiled at her, and a waiter led them to a table.  
Suddenly Ashley stood up again.  
"Juanita didn't mean this to be so immediate, but she has something she'd like to show you in private." Ashley took a few steps away from the table and diverted her attention from the two. G'Kem was confused. This was supposed to be a friendly lunch Ashley hadn't shown any signs of anything unusual. Juanita pulled his attention towards her. She invited him to look into her mind. G'Kem obeyed.  
Words could not have explained it so quickly. And when a telepath looks so deeply into another telepath's mind, there are no lies because you can see what the person truly knows.  
And Juanita knew something that G'Kem needed to know. This is what Juanita told him without words:  
  
*The Earth-Minbari war ended with Jeffrey Sinclair and the soul of Valen. You know the story. If we--you don't act fast, it may end with the fall of Earth. You know Susan Ivanova, she won't live much longer, you're aware of her current condition. But she is vital in stopping the Earth-Minbari war. The Shadow war is not over. Non-sequitor, yes? Wrong. Ganya Ivanov, Susan's brother, would have drowned at age 13 if Susan Ivanova, age 68, who somehow arrived there from the future, had not been there to alert the rescue team that there was a boy drowning in the river. Ganya would never live to the Earth-Minbari war, where he somehow interacted with Jeffrey Sinclair somehow keeping Sinclair from going on a mission earlier in the war. If Ganya hadn't been there, Sinclair would have died, unnoticed as Valen. The Babylon Station would never have been built, Sinclair would never have fulfilled the Valen prophecy, and likewise, the Shadows would have won the war. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that Susan Ivanova will live to be 68. The life energy she got from Marcus was only his life span, which, by some very unfortunate fluke of nature, is naturally only 59 years. There are records of the rescue. That is why, for the both wars to go as they are supposed to, Susan Ivanova must have enough life energy to live those extra nine years at least. Go to 4-Post.*  
  
G'Kem nodded. He saw it in his mind, the records. They had been passed on, but they were intact. Perfectly intact.  
But there was something else. The memory was fading as Susan Ivanova's life was.  
  
4-Post was a heap of junk out in Sector 14 assigned to monitor the time anomaly there. No one was there but a small team of scientists. Actually the time anomaly had closed up years ago, but people had still been placed out there to monitor out the area in case it reappeared.  
"G'Kem Sheridan to 4-Post. Requesting right to dock."  
"Hello. We've been expecting you. Proceed."  
G'Kem maneuvered his ship into the tiny dock.  
As he stepped into the docking bay, a woman ran up to him. She seemed to be in a hurry, and G'Kem, who had reviewed the situation over again, could understand why. Why they needed him was another matter entirely.  
The woman had been listening to his thoughts. She was a telepath. "If you don't mind me intruding, we need you because you're as close to General Ivanova as anyone we could contact. I'm Brooke, by the way. I'm going to be your partner in the time jump."  
"Time jump!" exclaimed G'Kem.  
"You weren't briefed? Our mission is to reopen the time anomaly and travel back to a point in time where we can donate a small bit of our own life energy so Ivanova will live long enough to do what she needs to."  
"And who decided that I would even go along with this?" G'Kem was beginning to feel as if people were just expecting things of him.  
"Ashley said, and as far as we're concerned, you don't have much choice."  
"But I didn't know Susan at the point in time you're talking about." He realized he was whining a bit, and knew he was forgetting all he had learned from the Vorlons as a boy.  
"You still know her better than anyone of us. And we don't have the alien healing machine now. If we did, Ivanova would be a very different person."  
She was referring to an incident during the telepath war that forever changed Captain Ivanova's life. She had been watching her security guards take a particularly rebellious telekinetic as a prisoner of war. Finding she couldn't do much in the way of escape, the teek had singled our Ivanova and ripped her spinal cord in the middle of her upper back. Any higher and she probably would have lost some function in her arms as well. The ship's doctor Heather O'Day was completely clueless as to what had happened when the captain had reportedly given a surprised shout and fallen to the floor. It had taken them three hours to locate the exact location of the rip and by then the damage was done.  
When Susan Ivanova met Doctor O'Day when she first took the command before the war, she had finally met her match in all areas of pessimism, sarcasm and one liners. The two of them would often use each other to grouch at. G'Kem didn't care much for O'Day though. From the very beginning, she had shown no respect for a Narn child raised by Vorlons, and had treated him like a baby.  
When the Vorlons went beyond the Rim, G'Kem had nothing on their home world, and had left it and wandered around in common space for three years until at time when he was on a transport to Earth, had a telepathic mind burst and nearly destroyed the ship when he was unable to control his abilities.  
Susan Ivanova's ship had picked up the distress call he had sent, and she had managed to calm him down as she later said, "Like I once saw an old friend do on Babylon 5." At the time she seemed hesitant to use the word 'friend' but he didn't find out why until much later.  
She had tried to locate his biological parents, but with no results. After he had been on her ship for six weeks, Susan finally received a message from Delenn saying she and John would adopt the young telepath and raise him on Minbar.  
But like a baby animal who thinks the first thing it sees is its mother, G'Kem had become very attached to Susan Ivanova. She was the first person to ever really care about him. It was a problem that had lasted all his life.  
G'Kem grew up on Minbar with David, whom he became quite fond of eventually. David was a bit of an oddball like himself. To the present, it still stumped everyone where David Sheridan had gotten his coloring. His eyes seemed to change color every few months and his hair, which was almost pitch black and not at all shiny, never grew past his shoulders. Brittle, white tipped hairs stuck out around his ears. He was always skinny but stronger than he looked.  
The biological child of Delenn and John Sheridan had always been a bit strange in disposition. Even after he had long since outgrown childhood seizures, David always seemed a bit uneasy and off balance. This was not helped after his parents where nearly killed at the hands of then Emperor Londo Mollari of the Centauri. David would frequently talk in English and Minbari at the same time without realizing it, dropping in words from both languages.  
Even though G'Kem grew up with John and Delenn, he was still attached to Susan. No matter what she did towards him, and it was usually very minimal, he still wished she had taken him as her own child.  
And that was his connection with Susan. It wasn't surprising that they had wanted him for this, but it wasn't like it was his lifestyle to just be called away to change history. Maybe they thought that the adopted son of the One who is and the One who will be was the best person for the assignment.  
"How can you make me do this?" asked G'Kem.  
"Think about it," said Brooke, "Do you want the Shadows to win the war?"  
"But why me?" G'Kem ran after Brooke, who had picked up her pace.  
She was a tall woman with dirty blond hair and gray eyes. She was wearing a Starfury pilot's outfit and head microphone. She looked and acted as if she had been on 4-Post her whole life and never did anything but watch uneventful readouts. Maybe this was the case. But it looked as if 4- Post had been taken over by this crazy operation.  
She led G'Kem into a small room where there sat two of men.  
"You're here, this can't take long. The sooner we can get history on track he better for everyone." That was one of them. He stood up and G'Kem saw a telepathic flash of the mission plan.  
"Man this is suicide," muttered G'Kem.  
"It'll be suicide if we don't go through with this," Brooke pointed out.  
The plan was to somehow get into Babylon 5's medlab and Brooke would give some of her life energy to Ivanova. All G'Kem had to do was get them onto the station with his knowledge of computer systems. The telepathic communication had also mentioned a third person, and suddenly G'Kem became aware of another person in the room.  
She hopped off her chair and stuck her face into G'Kem's.  
"Ah!" She clucked at G'Kem. "You notice Patras. Good. Patras know much about time anomaly. Learn from brothers. Yes. Great Machine reopen anomaly for you."  
Some memory of John describing a man somewhat like this came back to G'Kem. "You have to remember," he had said, "they can be useful people to have around."  
Patras pulled three round devices out of her pocket.  
"Last existing time stabilizers. Oh no, not good. Not good." She gnashed her yellow teeth.  
"What's not good?" G'Kem asked.  
"One of stabilizers not work properly. Must have gotten damaged in pocket. Draal tell Patras to bring case, but Patras not listen, is sorry now. Only two people able to go."  
"Only two!" exclaimed Brooke.  
"Eh he... you come with Patras."  
The creature pointed to a startled G'Kem.  
"Me? She can go!"  
"Nah, you come. She stay. Is better that way."  
G'Kem wasn't sure of that. Who could just say it was better for him to go without Brooke and give his own life energy to a Susan Ivanova who didn't know him yet? He would be more than willing if the Alien Healing Machine still existed now and could save them all time travel, but in this case, she couldn't appreciate this as a gift from someone who cared about her. And what would she do if she saw him?  
Patras started to dart out of the room.  
"Come now! Must hurry!"  
"Now? We're going now?"  
"Of course. Come!"  
G'Kem ran to catch up with the strange woman.  
"Since there are only two of us, we go in Starfury. Must put on suit."  
As G'Kem pulled on the Starfury clothing and helmet, he asked Patras why she had chosen him over Brooke.  
"You last surviving relative of Ivanova. I choose."  
"But I'm not really related to her."  
"Men say to Patras to take relative. Patras choose relative. Patras take relative. You see?"  
"I'm only half human. Brooke probably has more common ancestors. Half of mine are Narn." G'Kem was still trying to get out of this.  
"Patras sorry. We go now."  
Patras plunked herself down in the second seat.  
"You fly Starfury better than Patras," she explained unnecessarily, gesturing for G'Kem to take the pilot's seat.  
He did know how to fly a Starfury. As a boy he had studied ships and how to operate them. At least that was in his favor. He gave up and got in. He clipped his time stabilizer to his suit.  
"This is G'Kem, we're ready to go."  
"Confirmed. We're getting a transmission from Epsilon 3. It's reopening the time anomaly." It was Brooke. G'Kem could hear much envy in her voice. He couldn't help but feel for her. It had been her mission and he had taken it from her without any desire to.  
If only Delenn knew what he was doing, he thought with a slight grin. He didn't know what her reaction would be. But might she know about this operation? She was familiar all the ins and outs and horrendous confusion of time jumping if all she had told him was true.  
The time anomaly didn't seem as large as Delenn had described it. Perhaps the Great Machine didn't want any stray ships to get into it. It was barely large enough for the Starfury to get in.  
G'Kem piloted the fury into the anomaly. He was excited but scared to death of what might be in for him. He also hadn''t expected the woman behind him to be interested in chatting.  
"Brothers teach Patras to work for Great Machine."  
"On Epsilon 3?"  
"Yes. And Draal teach." Suddenly after a second of silence she made an exited growl and announced that they were at their target time.  
"You sure?" He looked back at Patras.  
She nodded.  
"Alright. Pulling our of anomaly. How long is it to Babylon 5 from here?"  
"Hmmm. Twenty-five of your minutes jump Patras think."  
G'Kem checked the fury's capabilities and was pleased to find that the ship was hyperspace capable.  
"Initiating jump point." He hoped he could remember which jumpgate opened at Babylon 5. He supposed it was the Epsilon Grid one which had been disassembled after Babylon 5 in his time was destroyed and the sector became unstrategic for anyone.  
Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five minutes in hyperspace. He and Patras both agreed that ship their size in the 60''s would not be able to form its own jump point. G'Kem locked onto the Epsilon jumpgate's signature. They left hyperspace.  
The Babylon station hung in orbit around Epsilon 3 just as G'Kem remembered it from years before. The first time he had seen it was when Susan had taken him to meet the couple who had agreed to adopt him.  
All the senior staff had been invited to dinner as a welcome party for G'Kem and as a reunion party for Ivanova and her former crew mates. He'd clung to her for most of the time despite her great attempts in getting him familiar with John and Delenn.  
Not being well trained to handle his telepathy, G'Kem had gotten a headache from all the background chatter in the room and Delenn had taken him aside and finally back to her quarters, where he spent the evening telepathically talking to baby David, who seemed to hear him.  
G'Kem suspected that the backup to get onto the station wasn't as bad as it sometimes was. The place seemed to be holding its breath with the historical situation on Earth. Still, it took awhile before the Starfury was allowed into the docking bay.  
Despite the few ships outside, customs was crowded. G'Kem and Patras pushed to get through faster. They didn't have much time to waste, even though time seemed to be unlimited.  
"Identicard."  
Patras handed her card to the guard. G'Kem did the same. His head was full of worries. What if identicards were different in the 60's? What if Patras's race wasn't registered? What if this whole crazy mission didn't work!?  
"Okay," and the guard continued with the next person in line. G'Kem gave a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was go through with the rest of the mission. Patras scurried behind him as he walked through the Zocalo.  
G'Kem leaned over to one of the vendors.  
"Hey what's the date?" He asked it as if he simply couldn't remember the day of the month.  
"Twenty-second," she said.  
"Thanks."  
The liberation of Earth happened in November, so this had to be November 22. He was a day early.  
  
Morning dawned as well as any morning can on a space station, but G'Kem and Patras were already ahead of it. He was worried. He checked the station's map for the medlab. He turned to Patras.  
"I'll go alone. You stay here."  
"Patras understand. Patras stay behind."  
"Good."  
He ran down the corridor and took the route to the medlab.  
The door was open, and the place looked like a hurricane had just blown through. Trays were knocked over, doors forced open, and people knocked unconscious. By instinct, he ran deeper into the rooms.  
And he found it. Marcus still had some life in him, but he was more dead. Susan was lying there.  
The shock was more than he had expected. Every time he saw her, she looked about the same as she had the last time. But here she was, a child of 31, and here he was, older than her. She seemed to be smiling slightly, and it was unsettling.  
He could hear the mind echoes of medical attendants in the distance. He pulled the clamps off Marcus and put them on his own arms. Marcus looked at him in daze but puzzled. In the mission flash, they had calculated that forty-six seconds would do the trick. He began to count. He hoped the machine was still at the correct setting. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18....22, 23, 24. He could hear them coming closer. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 seconds. He felt slightly dizzy. 42, 43, 44. They were two rooms away. 45, 46, 47. Perhaps they had underestimated. 48, 49...54, 55. He ripped the devices off of himself. As G'Kem ran drowsily out of the room, he didn't notice that Marcus was still slightly alive.  
  
G'Kem conked out the moment he was safely back with Patras in the spare cobra bay where they had put their Starfury. He slept for more than a day. But as quickly as he had fallen asleep, he woke up. He went back to the medlab.  
It was clear that Marcus was in his last moments of life. Whatever little bit of energy the stranger had saved him was about to run out. G'Kem peeked into the room where he lay. He saw the young Susan sitting by his bed, talking quietly to him, making up old faults while she still had the chance. Then she started to cry, and G'Kem knew that the death of Marcus was preserved in the time line.  
  
General Susan Ivanova hadn't been expecting anyone, and she was surprised when the doorbell rang. It was probably just someone trying to sell her something, but she answered it. She opened the door slightly.  
"G'Kem, I wasn't expecting you! Come in!"  
He was so happy to see her she could never imagine. She was the same Susan he remembered and loved so much. He noticed her lone earring as she gazed up at him. Well, she seemed mostly the same. But there was something else with her that hadn't been there before. She seemed happier somehow. She had been able to reconcile her feelings toward Marcus before he died. That was years ago, but G'Kem could see it clearly in his mind. To him, it had happened only days before.  
"I have something you need to know," he explained confidently, "Well, something you need to do." 


	2. Susan Ivanova, The One Who Might Be

Susan Ivanova (The One Who Might Be)  
  
Of course Ivanova remembered when Ganya had almost drowned. The near death of a family member is not easily forgotten, and Susan had never felt the need to forget it.  
He probably would have drowned if it were not for a stranger who had seen Ganya fall into the river and called the park rangers. Their family had gone camping several times before at that site but despite the river warnings that year, Ganya had been walking just beside the river just as any energetic thirteen year old boy would have done, and a cave of dirt had collapsed under him. Susan had been the only one who identified the woman who had notified the rescue team. Otherwise, her parents would never have been able to thank her for it.  
And now the time had come for General Susan Ivanova, retired, to do just what she remembered happening so many years before. She'd had eight years to think it through.  
Who could know if she had needed to wait this long? Perhaps it didn't matter which year she came from as long as she did what had been done, would be done, whatever.  
She had realized some time ago that she had no pictures of her family. There were none in the St. Petersburg historical library.  
Most of the Psi Corps records had been destroyed during the telepath war, which was one of the big contributors to the organization's loss of power and eventual collapse. There was simply no documentation of who was a telepath. Without the Corps to get them, there seemed to be many more telepaths than there were before the war. These were people like herself who had hidden out before but were no longer afraid to use their talent.  
But this meant that there were also no surviving records of the sleeper division. No picture of her mother. She had looked in the school records going back to the twenty-second century. No pictures of any of them.  
That was why, when Susan Ivanova packed for the trip to sector 14, she put a palm recorder in her pocket. She wouldn't be intruding on her family's privacy by taking a picture of them, would she?  
  
Why must they drag us all out here to go back in time? Sector 14 was not the closest place to Earth. Still, Ivanova had been getting restless for space after living on Earth for several years now. She never much liked public transports though. Most of the bunk rooms were very tight, and smelled horrible.  
She hadn't been on one for years, and she hadn't remembered how tight the spaces were. The hand rims of her wheelchair scraped the door frame as she entered her sleeping cabin.  
The transport wasn't actually going to 4-Post. Its destination was a fairly large colony in Sector 12. Another person in on the operation was also coming to the dock that orbited that planet, and they would meet up there.  
She put her bag on the small shelf near the bunk bed.  
"And now I sit around for two days doing nothing," she said to herself.  
"You can talk to me if you have nothing else to do." Ivanova hadn't noticed anyone else in the room until then. A young woman peered lazily down at her from the top bunk, her arm over the railing.  
"Oh. I didn't see you. Hi."  
"I'm Susan."  
"Hey! So am I," answered Ivanova.  
"Nice to meet you. Why're you coming out here? Have family?"  
"Um, sort of. I guess you could put it that way."  
The woman nodded, grinding her teeth as if she had chewing gum.  
Ivanova pulled herself onto the lower bunk. The other Susan climbed down and began to walk around the small room, and Ivanova got a good look at her.  
She was medium height, her hair was dark brown and cut short, and her eyes were also brown. Ivanova usually classified noses as pointing up or down, and this woman's pointed down.  
"I've probably spent as much time on transports as I have on planets."  
"You travel a lot?"  
"Well, I wander around. It's quite hard for a mundane to get a good job these days. I work where I can."  
Ivanova pretended to ignore that last remark.  
"You travel?"  
"I don't know. I'm getting old. I haven't been in space for a while now. But it seems to say to me 'Hey, what are you doing on Earth? Aren't I more exciting?'"  
"That sounds like an adventurer," said Susan, "The kind of person who would join Earthforce."  
"Really?" breathed Ivanova, amused.  
"What?"  
She stuck out her hand. "General Susan Ivanova. Earthforce."  
"Oh that's embarrassing."  
Ivanova arched her eyebrows.  
How she envied Susan. She wasn't caught between being a mundane and a telepath. She didn't have to debate how much of her telepathy to use. She was one of the few real mundanes left after the slightly irresponsible intermarrying between normals and telepaths that earned the humans the status of 'mostly telepathic.' There was now an organization of mundanes where Psi Corps had once stood.  
And Susan Ivanova had been caught in the middle of this sudden shift when the Psi Corps dissolved. Even when telepaths became the majority, coming out as one of them had been one of the hardest things she had ever done--right up there with keeping her command after she was paralyzed.  
"I think I'll go look around the ship."  
"You go. I've seen plenty of transports."  
Ivanova transferred back into her wheelchair and squeezed out of the room.  
She hadn't expected anything very exciting. A cafeteria. A small lounge. Maintenance rooms.  
The lounge had a window, and she looked at the stars. She closed one eye and looked at them. She opened it again and saw their depth.  
A pair of preteen Minbari twins walked up to the window together and looked out, glancing at each other now and then. One began to climb onto the large windowsill, only to be pulled down by his mother who caught him in the act and scolded him quietly.  
At a table across the room a small gathering of men and women pulled out a scuffed deck of cards and organized an Uno game. Funny to see people like that playing Uno when one would definitely expect something a bit more, well, casino-oriented maybe? Like poker?  
The main reason was that poker had lost its appeal now that most humans where telepaths. Uno was rarely played for money so people tended to be more honest. The preferred method of gamboling was random games.  
There wasn't much else. Ivanova returned to her room. Susan was being flat on the bed again.  
"What's a six letter word for 'irregular' first letter being a 'W'?" Susan sat up abruptly, a small book of crossword puzzles in her hand.  
"Don't know. I don't do crosswords."  
  
Ivanova studied the station map on the wall. If she was at gate 2 and Gates 1-10 were on level 1 and 11-20 were on level 2 and 21-20 were on level four, then what was level three for and if the main bays where here and the private bays where there on one of the spider arms, then where was she supposed to meet Rosanne Tellman? Any Earthforce person had some sense of direction on a ship or station, but this was outrageous.  
She was sure she could recognize her. They'd talked several times in preparation for the mission. It was only a matter of finding her.  
Ivanova found a comm station near her gate.  
"Please select type of call."  
She hit 'onstation page.'  
"Rosanne Tellman," she told the computer. She added a message. She needed to identify herself. "This is Susan Ivanova. My transport came in at Gate 2. Ganya and Jeff." She told the computer to send.  
They hadn't known ahead of time which gate for Ms. Tellman to meet her at. They had arranged to figure it out when Ivanova's transport arrived.  
She scanned the crowd for Ms. Tellman. Elementary rule: The very person you're looking for is never in sight. Or maybe sometimes they are. Ivanova saw a woman she recognized.  
"Rosanne Tellman?"  
The woman noticed her.  
"Susan Ivanova?"  
Both of them nodded when they realized who the other was. Ivanova wanted to be sure though. In a world of telepaths you could never be too careful.  
"Do you mind if I take a look at your identicard?" she requested. Ms. Tellman held it out for her to look at.  
"Alright. I'm convinced you are who you are."  
"The shuttle's in private bay 10."  
They both looked around.  
"I'm assuming you know how to get back there."  
"Of course," said Ms. Tellman nervously, "If the map is correct, it's... this way." She gestured with a slightly disoriented look on her face and walked through the crowds, and Ivanova just followed her.  
"What are you going to do? Are you coming on the mission or staying at 4-Post?" Ivanova asked as the other woman stopped to examine a station map once again.  
"I'm staying. But really, the Great Machine isn't going to open the time anomaly in sector 14. Draal has to open it closer to Earth."  
Ivanova rested her hands on the rims of her wheelchair.  
"What? Oh. Of course. The Earth border in 2237 didn't reach this far-- "  
"I think we need to go this way," mused Ms. Tellman.  
"So you're saying they just dragged us out here just because that's where all the other time jumps took place?"  
"No one checks sector 14 anymore. Anyone gathering in any other place might attract attention."  
"Whatever you say..."  
  
Susan Ivanova had traveled in the time anomaly many years before. She had been on the White Star when Babylon 4 traveled back in time to fulfill the Valen prophecy. That was the last time she had seen Jeff Sinclair. He had left forever, he had become Valen. At the time she had been jealous of him. He really had a destiny, but where was her life going to go?  
She knew now. She seemed to be as important as Jeff in the scheme of things. Why had she been jealous of him? Here, now, she was scared to death of her mission. Would she come back? Or would she be forced to stay in the past, even live out the Earth-Minbari war again?  
"You'll return to this time," Ms. Tellman reassured her.  
"Am I broadcasting my thoughts that loud?" Ivanova asked. They were in the shuttle en route to 4-Post.  
"Your worries are ringing in my ears. If you don't mind, could you try to think a little more softly? I can't pilot a shuttle... nnn." Her voice trailed off as she got a serious concentration look on her face flying the shuttle.  
...with you yacking away in my head. Ivanova heard it even though Ms. Tellman had thought better before saying it. She couldn't let chat be the reason for anything to happen to their shuttle.  
  
Susan Cranston raised her hands up above her head, then touched her palms to the floor. She sat down on the cabin floor and sitting straddle, touched her head down.  
It was then that she noticed something. It was a data crystal. She picked it up. It must have fallen out of Susan Ivanova's bag before she got off the transport. There was only one way to be sure though. She hopped up and slipped the crystal into the console on the wall.  
"Identify owner," she said.  
"Susan Ivanova."  
"What is it?"  
"Earthforce ship and personal logs dating 2262 through 2266."  
Susan couldn't resist. She didn't mean to intrude, but really, if you carry your logs around, someone's bound to get a hold of them.  
"Play," she said.  
  
"Zathras has been training little sister in Great Machine work to take place of Zathras after Zathras die. But Zathras remember you. Zathras serve the One."  
"The One?" asked Ivanova a bit stupidly as they flew from 4-Post. "Me?"  
"The One who might have been, but you do this so you are the One who is and--"  
"I get the point."  
4-Post would reflect the signal from Epsilon 3 farther towards Earth when the shuttle got to its coordinates, which were far into the area that was Earth space years before.  
If all want well she would see her parents and Ganya again. (If all went well? It had to!) She would be going back to a time before her mother committed suicide, and before the general population of Earth had even heard of the Minbari race. She didn't want to go back knowing what would happen to the Humans just a few years after that. She didn't want to see her family, even if only as a stranger to them. She didn't think her parents would even suspect in the slightest that a near seventy year old woman was their seven year old daughter. But the point was she had finally learned to live her life without them, and all that might be lost if she saw them again. And her mother had worked so hard to keep her away from Psi Corps. She had said never to let anyone know she was a telepath. Now everyone knew. Susan Ivanova used her abilities like any other sensible person of the 2290's who could.  
Zathras was looking at her curiously.  
"What?"  
"Your hair is different color from last time I see you."  
"Oh. Yea that happens to Humans as we get older. Our hair goes grey."  
Zathras breathed gutturally as he understood.  
"That not happen to Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or Zathras. Or-"  
"I get the point!" Susan Ivanova had limited patience for Zathras.  
"Or Draal."  
Ivanova laughed at that. Yes, it was true that Draal probably didn't have any grey hair, but really. Draal didn't have any hair at all.  
"Wait a minute. Have we met before?"  
"Of course. You come down and ask Zathras for power from Great Machine to broadcast news reports."  
"So that was you, not one of your brothers."  
"Yes that was Zathras."  
There was a pause.  
"Have you ever considered applying pronouns to yourself?"  
"What?"  
"Well, in most languages, if you use 'I' and 'me' instead of your name then it's clear that you mean yourself and not one of your brothers, for example."  
"Zathras not understand."  
"Like that. Instead of saying 'Zathras not understand,' you could have said 'I do not understand.'"  
"What does word 'me' mean?"  
"Well, you know the word 'you.' Point to me and say 'you.'"  
"Why do that?"  
"Just do it."  
"You."  
"Now point to yourself and say 'me.' It's a way of referring to yourself."  
Zathras pointed to himself. "Me."  
"Do you understand now?"  
"Zathras understand."  
"I understand," she corrected.  
"I understand," he managed. "I understand."  
"You've got it."  
"Why you teach Zathras this?"  
"Why you teach me this," she growled.  
"Oh, sorry. Why you teach me this?"  
"Because I was getting really sick of figuring out who you meant by Zathras."  
"Oh. Za- I try to speak like that now."  
They were quiet for the rest of the trip. Ivanova figured Zathras was meditating on 'I' and 'me.'  
"Well, here we are," she announced. "Contacting 4-Post."  
The time anomaly post reflected the signal from Epsilon 3 to the present location of Ivanova and Zathras's shuttle.  
Zathras opened the case that he had with him.  
"Oh yes, time stabilizers," said Ivanova. Less cheerfully she noted that Sheridan's had been damaged in the last time jump she had made.  
"That was first one to break. Draal disassemble all but three after mission was complete. Third one break when Patras not careful."  
"Patras. Your sister?"  
"She help the One Who Must Be in last time jump."  
"Who's the One who must be?"  
"G'Kem Sheridan. He make sure you live long enough to do this."  
"How?" What did G'Kem have to do with this? He obviously knew all about this mission. He had been the one who had told her what she needed to do in the first place. But Zathras was making it sound like G'Kem had done some time jumping himself.  
"When did G'Kem time jump?"  
"G'Kem go back to 2261--to you. He give you extra life energy to live long enough to do this. You see, Marcus naturally live only 59 years. You live on Marcus life energy then and you live on G'Kem these past eight years."  
Actually she wasn't surprised that G'Kem had been the stranger who had taken over what Marcus had been so willing to do. Indeed, she hadn't been a stranger to him at all. It must have been strange for him. She hadn't known him. She wondered what he had thought of her. Young. When G'Kem had first met her, she had been near that age, mid thirties, but he had been eight years old and your judgment of age isn't as developed then.  
She suspected he had seen her anyway, other than when she was lying in medlab. She seemed to remember spotting someone peeking around the corner when she had been talking to Marcus. Oh maybe not. It had probably just been one of the medlab staff. Ivanova had wanted every moment she had with Marcus (How ironic given how annoying he had always been.) and she hadn't tried to catch the stranger and ask him why he had done it. She would have to talk to G'Kem when she got back.  
"Alright lets get going." Ivanova initiated the time count sequence.  
  
Space was space. Space had ships. Space now had old fashioned ships. The ship the two of them were on was an old design. Any technology from races not encountered in 2237 had been taken out. The meant no artificial gravity from the Minbari.  
Ivanova wondered what the date was and how much time they had.  
"Setting course for Earth."  
She was still debating in her mind whether she ought to take it easy or not. She still remembered the river incident clearly--it wasn't being overridden by any alternate universes yet. At least she wasn't too late. But how much time did they have exactly? How could they time notifying the rescue team at the campsite?  
"We have to find out the date," she asserted to herself. She wondered how to achieve that. It was the old movie plot problem. Ask the date and year and you sound incredibly crazy.  
After they had arrived at Earth and docked at one of the orbital stations, they were at the mercy of public transportation to the surface.  
Ivanova couldn't remember if there was a shuttle that went directly to St. Petersburg, or only to Moscow. There was one in 2298, but this wasn't 2298.  
There had to be. St. Petersburg was a huge city, Ivanova thought as she waited in the ticket line. Zathras was looking at a 3D map of Earth across the room.  
"What city?" the ticket salesman asked. Ivanova looked up at him.  
"Is there a shuttle to St. Petersburg? The one in Russia, I mean."  
"The surface station was flooded in those rains they've been having lately. They won't have it back open until next week at best. I can give you Novgorod though."  
"I guess it'll have to do. Two for Novgorod. I'll have to find some other means to get to St. Petersburg."  
"Identicard." He reached over the counter.  
Ivanova handed her identicard to the man.  
"That's four credits."  
Ivanova nodded.  
Cheap. She was still thinking 90's. Actually it didn't matter. A credit is a credit no matter what decade you spend it in.  
"And what's name of the other person in your party?"  
"Zathras."  
"Alright."  
The tickets had what she had hoped they would have on them. The date. It was July 20, 2237, 4:36 pm EST.  
With the tickets in her mouth she called "Zathras," to the animal- person engrossed in calculating something on the map across the room.  
Suddenly she looked over her shoulder. The stranger was still there. Someone was following them.  
  
Another time, another place.  
"Play ship or personal logs?" asked the computer.  
"Ship logs are boring. Personal," said Susan Cranston. She really didn't feel much guilt in reading peoples' diaries. If General Ivanova didn't want anyone listening to them she should have encrypted them.  
  
Zathras leaned over to listen to her as they were in the hallway to the shuttles. "Zathras, I think someone's following us," she said through her teeth, "I don't know who or why--here, hold the tickets." She took them out of her mouth. "I don't know who he is or why he's following us, but I can tell he isn't just going the same way as us."  
"Can't you scan mind of follower?"  
"I don't want to risk that. He could be a telepath."  
Zathras looked around and spotted the man that Ivanova seemed to be talking about. "This not good."  
"Or, maybe it's not so bad as I think."  
"No. This not good. We must get to crowded place. Hurry."  
"What--" But Zathras was off like a shot, darting clumsily around other people.  
"Zathras!" She looked behind her. The man was padding along quietly, getting closer. She chased after Zathras.  
The main shuttle terminal was crowded.  
"Hey I need to get through! Excuse me!" She would never know what they were running away from if she couldn't catch up with Zathras.  
Suddenly Zathras turned around and called to Ivanova over the racket in the room. He started pushing through the crowns towards her.  
"We safe for now. Here."  
"What happened?!" she shouted as they met each other.  
"He is Time Tracker. Work for alternate universe. Can only be seen by target."  
"You mean there's someone right behind us who's trying to jeopardize this mission?"  
"Crowded place better. More chance Tracker accidentally touch someone."  
"What?"  
"People wonder why they feel something. Usually, you see what you feel. If Time Tracker invisible, it confuse people. People get scared, and they think Tracker is ghost. Not good for Tracker."  
Ivanova suddenly realized something. If the Time Tracker ever attacked either of them physically, what would the public think of them fighting back at nothing?  
She had to get this straightened out. "You're saying they this Tracker will do almost anything to create the alternate universe?"  
"Not anything. Cannot harm natural residents of time. Only us."  
"What if he decides to sabotage the Novgorod shuttle? Are we just dead then? I mean do you know anything about their tactics? Are they..." she pulled a word out, "drastic? Will the Tracker try to kill us or just hold us until it's too late?"  
"Zathras not know." Ivanova looked around. The Tracker had been lost on the fringes of the crowds for the moment.  
"Shuttles for Novgorod, Kiev, Jerusalem, Eritrea, Gaborone, and Cape Town leave in fifteen minutes." The message was repeated in the official language of each country-consortium in which each of the cities were. It was also repeated in Centauri and two other alien languages.  
"That's us. We can't let the Tracker let us miss it. Come on."  
The Novgorod shuttle was already boarding by the time they got there.  
"We're trying to get to St. Petersburg," explained Ivanova at the gate, "Is there anything that goes there from Novgorod? I mean if the shuttle station in St. Petersburg is closed is there something on the ground directly from Novgorod?"  
The gate manager was only filling in for the regular and didn't know much.  
"Alright, thanks anyway."  
Zathras and Ivanova boarded the shuttle paranoidly. They had hardly lost the Time Tracker--he only seemed to be trying to get around the crowds.  
Ivanova stayed at the doorway. If the Tracker tried to board, he would be in for a big surprise. Zathras, who had claimed territory closest to where Ivanova sat, watched apprehensively.  
A flight attendant walked up to Ivanova.  
"Ma'am, we're almost ready to leave. There's a wheelchair floor clamp in the seating cabin."  
"So everyone's on?" asked Ivanova tensely.  
"Yes."  
"Then what the hell are you waiting for?" exclaimed Ivanova, a bit too enthusiastically, "Close the shuttle doors! My brother's going to die! In other words, we are trying to save Earth from being conquered by the Minbari, not to mention the Shadows, thank you very much!" Actually, she didn't say that last part. She glared up at the flight attendant.  
"Alright," she said, a bit startled but calmly, "That's what I was about to do."  
  
Another time, another place. Susan Cranston had obviously missed something very important. Who was Marcus?  
  
Ivanova had lived in this time. It was a startling thought, and she realized how old she had let herself get. Seventy at the turn of the century.  
And a thought hit her. It overwhelmed her and scared her. She did want to see her family again. More than anything she had ever wanted. More than anything in the universe. She thought she would give up everything she ever had to see them again for five minutes.  
But she didn't have to do that. She was going to see them. Her father, Ganya, her mother. She couldn't comprehend or dare to believe it.  
They wouldn't even know her. Her seven-year-old self wouldn't even recognize her. No one would say, "Susan, we've missed you!" and she certainly couldn't say that to them.  
They landed in Novgorod. Ivanova still didn't know if they'd lost the Time Tracker. Something told her that he wouldn't give up that easily.  
There was a train station near the shuttle port, fortunately (Though Ivanova was certain it wasn't an accident that there was a station there).  
The camp site was two or three miles out of the city of Gatchina (near St. Petersburg) on the Luga River. With these slow 30's trains, it took them 40 minutes to get there.  
At the road to the campgrounds Ivanova told Zathras, "There's nothing that runs between here and the campsites. We'll have to walk the distance."  
"Zathras not mind. Zathras walk farther."  
Ivanova had given up on being a grammar teacher. "Well, let's get going. There's nothing we can do until afternoon but let's see what we can do to prevent Ganya from falling in in the first place." Silently, Ivanova knew that wouldn't happen. The rescue team had been called because Ganya had fallen in. That memory was still hers. She wondered, after what seemed like an eternity, what would prevent them from keeping Ganya out of the water.  
It was almost pitch black. The sun hadn't risen yet and there were no stars. Her family had taken the break in the rain as an opportunity to go camping, but it was still foggy. A night bird chirped. It sounded like jingling bells. The noise echoed, bouncing around all corners of the night.  
"Do you have a flashlight Zathras, I can't see anything."  
"Zathras can see in dark like Earth owl."  
Suddenly Ivanova saw Zathras's shadow pounce on something.  
"You hungry? Zathras catch snail."  
Ivanova had always been appalled by what Zathras considered tasty. She grimaced when she heard something go crunch between his teeth.  
"Ew," muttered Ivanova.  
"Good protein."  
"Everything to you is good protein."  
  
Zathras examined the riverbank.  
"Pocket," he announced. He pulled several large rocks out and dug apart the small overhang. He walked cautiously a few more meters, his eyes locked on the bank.  
"Large one." He preformed the same operation as before. Ivanova couldn't imagine doing what on Epsilon 3 could have made him so strong. But she was still doubtful that changing the riverbank would do anything.  
  
Ganya and Susan walked along the riverbank. The pine needles cracked under their feet. A squirrel scuttled up a nearby tree.  
"Lemme see if I can stab a caterpillar," said Ganya, wielding a pointy stick and showing off to his little sister. He jabbed at the ground a couple of times. He stomped at something.  
"Hey, you splashed me!" accused Susan.  
"What?" demanded Ganya.  
"Zathras!" hissed Ivanova, "It's too late! Run! God! Run as fast as you can! Get the rescue team! It's not that far if you climb up to the road! We missed a pocket!"  
"Zathras not speak Russian."  
"Damn!" screamed Ivanova as loud as she dared, "Well gag and point to the river or something! What good are you?"  
She realized what she had to do. But she could never send a message that far, could she? She had to try. She closed her eyes and saw the ranger station. If only she could send a thought. She pushed her mind to the limits. She tried to ignore the fact that a borderline P3 will never be a P10 no matter what.  
And suddenly she felt as if someone had picked up her thought, boosted her abilities far enough.  
Young Susan screamed in surprise as Ganya slipped off the wet bank. But it was done. Something told the rescue team to get to the river.  
It was as if a weight holding back Ivanova's telepathy had been momentarily removed.  
Young Susan ran to the edge of the bank as her brother struggled in the icy water. Then she felt gentle arms on her, trying to comfort her.  
"Everything's going to be fine. There's no need to cry." Susan looked around and saw, through vision blurred by frightened tears, a woman. She had never felt safe with a stranger like this before, but she did. She used a wheelchair, and Susan leaned against it. She wondered, as the team caught Ganya in the rescue net, if she had found a guardian angel. At that moment, her parents ran over to where Ganya sat shivering in a blanket. She saw her parents hug and scold him at the same time. Susan ran over to them. They all huddled together. Then Susan pointed to her older self and said "She told me everything would be okay."  
Her mother sprang up. "You got the rescue team, didn't you? How can we thank you enough?" Even when she was excited, Sophie mumbled a bit.  
"Well, if you don't mind, could I get a picture of you guys?"  
"Well I suppose it'll be in the newspapers anyway, don't you think Andrei?"  
Her father pulled Ganya to his feet and the family stood together.  
"That's all I want," said Ivanova, trying to keep her voice even. "I have to go."  
"Oh you're welcome to come back to the campsite and visit us for a while."  
As tempting as it was, Ivanova had to refuse. "I have to go."  
"Alright. But thank you so much again. Thank you. Thank you."  
Ivanova returned to Zathras.  
"Something really strange happened when I was trying to get through to the ranger station. It was as if my telepathic abilities suddenly skyrocketed. I suppose it was just desperation."  
"You needed a boost, Susotchka."  
Ivanova stared in the direction of the person who had said that.  
"Oh my god have I left you that long? That is you, isn't it?"  
"Yah... how do you know me?" asked Ivanova, "You were just back there- -"  
"That was me three years ago. Oh god, I should have left you later but there was nothing left for me there." She put her hands on her face in self-hatred.  
"What's going on?"  
"I came to this time a month ago. Long enough for the sleepers to wear off."  
"Momma what are you talking about?"  
"You didn't notice? My self from this time scanned you back there. She knows you needed help in contacting the ranger station."  
"But... what? Who are you?"  
"You never really saw me die did you? I'd be a bit concerned if you did. I'm the first human to time travel. You were just a child a month ago, to me."  
"Is that really you Momma?"  
"What else can I do to prove it?"  
Sophie knelt down beside her daughter, who did something she never expected to do ever again. They touched minds. Zathras grinned insanely but remained silent.  
It was strange to see. Forty-five-year-old Sophie and her sixty-eight- year-old daughter. There was true life in their eyes again, after so much time. As they held onto each other, Sophie, concerned, sat down on the ground with Susan in her lap.  
"What happened to you?"  
"Everything."  
"Oh... I wouldn't know... So much must have happened in your life. Your whole life that's happened in the month that I was here. And I wasn't with you to watch you grow up."  
"I wish I could be ten years old again, and you could start again where you left off."  
"Well, time is a strange thing, Susotchka, you never know." 


	3. Turn to Dust

Turn to Dust  
  
"Lazy Time Tracker," said Ivanova with satisfaction, "He didn't try to bother us as much as I might have expected."  
  
"Don't say that," Sophie pointed out, "until you're done checking the shuttle."  
"Tracker not have any reason to track us now. Time line is preserved. So we go home. Not get any more trouble." Zathras seemed confident enough.  
"If you think I'm gonna relax before we get there, Zathras... Wait a minute. Momma? Do you have a time stabilizer?"  
"Of course I do. How do you think I got here?" Sophie took one of the round devices out of her jacket pocket and handed it forward. Zathras took it from her.  
"Old kind. Early test model. Need improvements."  
"I got here well enough."  
"Let Zathras see what he can do. Do we have toolkit in here?"  
"Toolkit is back in storage closet."  
Ivanova unstrapped herself from her seat and floated over to the cabinet behind the seating area. As she pulled the toolkit out of a secured compartment, she asked her mother, "How did you know I needed help? I thought the sleepers blocked your telepathic abilities. I only talked to this time's you for a couple of minutes back there."  
"It was near the end of the week, the drug was weaker. And I know your thought frequency well. So I was able to scan you. I had a feeling about you." Sophie folded her arms. "How long is the diagnostic?"  
"Almost done. The computer's having some trouble figuring out why some technology was removed. How did you get through time? Did you go to Epsilon 3?"  
"No. He came to Earth. They opened the time thing on Earth." She gestured towards Zathras.  
"Zathras? Zathras come? Zathras not remember that. But Zathras not have the greatest memory..."  
"You came," Sophie insisted.  
"It was probably Zathrash or Zathrasth or something," Ivanova suggested passively.  
"Not that much pronunciation difference."  
"That wasn't my point," grumbled Ivanova.  
"What was that?" asked Sophie.  
"There are ten--well nine--Zathras brothers on Epsilon 3." Zathras tried to protest for some reason but Ivanova ignored him. "They all look alike, they all talk alike, they all have the same name and they all dress alike. It really can drive you crazy." Ivanova gave Zathras a look and then glanced back at her mother again. It was really her. She was becoming very sure now.  
Zathras announced that the diagnostic was done. He made a few adjustments to Sophie's time stabilizer and announced that they were ready to head back to the time anomaly.  
"Then lets go," said Sophie.  
"Wait a minute. You're coming to 2298?" asked Ivanova.  
"There's nothing here for me."  
"I don't know if you'd like 2298 very much." But I hope you come, thought Ivanova, I really do. "I mean if you want to, I don't see why not."  
"What is it that you don't think I would like about 2298?"  
"Or, on the other hand you might love a world where Psi Corps doesn't exist but neither does a strong central Earth government, but what the hell?"  
"What?" asked Sophie blankly. "What about the Corps?"  
"It doesn't exist. After the telepath war."  
"There's no Psi Corps? That would be a nice change I think."  
"Yea, of course it is. So you are coming?"  
"I never changed my mind, Susan."  
"Then let's go."  
A few minutes later, Ivanova said, "So I'll tell you about what's happened between where you left off and 2298."  
In the next hour, she rattled off the entire history of the galaxy in the previous 60 years. It left her mother looking a bit overwhelmed and Zathras looking very bored. There is nothing more exclusive than two people next to you having an intense conversation in a language you don't know a word in. He made a point to learn Russian in his spare time.  
At last, Sophie turned to Zathras.  
"If I was met by one of your brothers on Earth, how did they know to come? I was getting worried that I wouldn't be able to do anything about what I knew."  
"When Jeff went back in time at least he had what Valen had written. We don't have anything," said Ivanova. "We'll just have to improvise."  
"Zathras can contact Epsilon 3. Tell brothers what to do."  
"Do that then."  
"Zathras set up communication. Will send it when we get to time anomaly."  
"That should be in about a half hour."  
  
The Time Tracker had failed on its mission. They had gotten back successfully. A week after Ivanova had gotten back to her life, she received a small package in the mail.  
"What?" she wondered as she opened it up. A data crystal fell out. Ivanova pulled out a small note as well.  
"I think you dropped this. --Susan Cranston."  
Who? Ivanova searched her memory. She wasn't sure she knew a Susan Cranston. What was this thing anyway?  
"Computer, scan this for viruses."  
"No viruses found."  
"What is it?"  
"Ship and personal logs dating 2262 through 2266."  
Now where did anyone get a hold of that? Wait, it must have been that Susan that she had run into on the transport...  
Why did it have to be those logs, out of all things? The telepath war logs? She took the crystal out of its socket, not needing to review the war's events which she still remembered anyway.  
  
***  
  
"Is there something wrong, Captain?" Commander Lawrence asked as he entered Captain Ivanova's office.  
"I was only supposed to be on this ship for a year. Now Earthforce wants me here for longer."  
"Is that a problem?" he asked.  
"Oh no, no, no, it has nothing to do with the crew. It's just that Earthforce didn't give me any explanation of why they want me to stay here. Don't you think that's a bit unusual? I think there's something going on. If they can't tell me what, then it's worse than I thought."  
"They must have their reasons."  
"Of course they do Commander," Ivanova answered, "It's just that we're not important enough to know what they're doing."  
Sometimes Fletcher Lawrence didn't know what to say in response to the captain's statements. He had never been good at that sort of thing. He just nodded.  
"Anyway, if you hear anything, I want to know," Ivanova told him.  
"Yes Sir."  
It wouldn't be long though, until the entire crew of every ship in Earthforce knew what was going on.  
  
"All ships are to stay out of P12 telepathy range of all ships and ports not registered in EarthGov as exclusively Earthforce stations, except for approved, mandatory resupplying and maintenance. No Earthforce officers, EarthGov officials, or immediate family of these people will have any contact with anyone outside the chain of command and government structure except prerecorded messages approved by EarthGov. Effective immediately until further notice."  
Depression settled over the ship as the crew heard the message. Ivanova silently got up and walked out of the room. She knew what it was. She knew what the P12 isolation was for. It was the beginning of a war of information. A war of telepaths against telepaths, and Earthforce would most certainly take sides with the Psi Corps simply because they were most likely to be the victors.  
  
Ivanova sat down to dinner. Or, rather, what she hoped could be dinner. Combined with the fact that the long periods of isolation between brief battles was creating mishmash things on the menu (broccoli with ketchup and parmesan cheese with watered down juice tonight, for example) and the way the war had been progressing altogether, she hadn't had much of an appetite.  
If anything had really happened in the war, it wasn't what people had expected. Well, maybe what Ivanova had expected but not what others did. How could you predict war anyway?  
There were not two sides in the war. There were three. There was the Psi Corps. There were the rouge telepaths, blips, planet wanderers, Byron followers, anti-Corps telepaths, that sort of thing. And there was Earthforce. The part of the fleet that even the Corps didn't side with. They were all fighting each other for different reasons. The rogues wanted independence. The Corps wanted power as usual. Earthforce was caught in the middle, trying to beat back both sides.  
It made her sick! Sick! Sick! Mundanes couldn't control telepaths. Anyone with any common sense knew that. And that simple fact was what had led Earthforce to a startling decision. There is only one substance known to the Human race able to balance the imbalance.  
Dust. Mundanes, some willing, some not, were using it as a weapon now. Dust. It temporarily stimulates the telepath gene in mundanes. Some call it the sleeper drug for normals because it goes against the brain's natural function, but don't all mind drugs do that?"  
Like most drugs, dust is addictive. Highly addictive. The user requires more and more to achieve the same effects. One has to take a whole lot of it to work to the same degree of a Psi Cop.  
Lieutenant Sharif sat down at the table. She began scribbling symbols and numbers on note cards.  
"What are you doing?" Ivanova asked.  
"Making a deck of cards. I searched the whole ship. No one has one. What's that?" Sharif pointed to the plate in front of Ivanova.  
"It's dinner. I still think it would have been better if they left off the ketchup. At least then it could have been edible."  
"Yea, I think they meant to do spaghetti sauce."  
"There isn't any spaghetti sauce," Ivanova pointed out.  
"That's why they used ketchup. I think I'll just have an apple or something."  
"No apples. We're going to have to re-supply soon. We've been going on what we've had since last October."  
Both of them knew that meant an approval and an almost top-secret mission to one of the colonies. Sometimes she thought that Earthforce was being a bit too top-secret about unimportant things like food loading.  
  
It all seemed too familiar to her. Earthforce seemed to have picked up some tactics from the Shadow-Vorlon standoff several years ago.  
But this was worse. Much worse. The part of EarthGov that wasn't with the Psi Corps was taking telepaths captured in battle and forcing them to work for Earthforce in defeating the other two sides. The rogues were taking hostages. Psi Corps was too cool to do either of those practices.  
The weeks slid past and into each other. The crew tried desperately to have fun, but even Lt. Sharif's playing cards didn't help.  
They had gotten messages before like the one they got one day. "A rouge fleet is going to attack whatsthaplace in three days. Don't ask us how you got the information. Just be there and see what you can do."  
The battle had been a losing one, but it hadn't been the worst they had had until Lt. Mikell shouted "Boarding pod in the hull at shuttle bay!"  
"Get a team down there stat!" ordered Ivanova. She jumped up and ran through the ship to the shuttle bay. She pulled up against the wall just away from the weapons fire. Wei Jiang was down.  
You couldn't allow yourself to worry about someone until the danger was over. Ivanova grabbed Jiang's weapon and shot one of the telepaths in the leg. He dropped his gun.  
"Take the survivors as prisoners!" Ivanova shouted. Immediately this resulted in wrestling fights instead of weapon fights. The surviving rogues were caught by her team.  
It took three of her people to hold one rogue woman. This woman screamed terrible insults and though her arms were held, her hands reached out as if to touch Ivanova. Her light brown hair fell over her eyes but the captain could still see them glaring at her. The telepath rubbed the tips of her fingers together quickly, snapping them as if to create fire.  
Ivanova tried to ask "What the?" but it only came out as a choked yell when she felt a stab of pain like a knife between her shoulder blades, and she fell to the floor. She could have been knocked out but her eyes stayed open and she stayed conscious.  
She tried to get up. This had happened before. More than two years ago. Marcus had given his own life energy for her. She had tried to rip the alien healing machine off him but she couldn't do it. She couldn't tell if it was from the pain or something else.  
"Marcus! Why did you do it?" something in her mind screamed, but she couldn't form the words. She couldn't breath. Something was pulling the breath out of her before it got in. Her tongue was bleeding from where she had bitten it.  
  
"She's awake," Ivanova heard O'Day say. Her eyes snapped open. She stared at the doctor for an explanation, but O'Day was already screaming at the three other doctors to treat the other wounded and figure out what had happened to the captain at the same time.  
More than an hour passed. The other people were treated and left.  
"Wha?" Ivanova asked finally, but she gagged.  
"Don't try to talk," O'Day snapped tensely as she leaned over her readouts and swore under her breath. Ivanova felt too rotten to glare at the doctor. "Tell her," O'Day told the doctor next to her.  
She stood over Ivanova. "It's bad," she said. "She was a telekinetic. She... she ripped your spinal cord, Captain. Here." She solemnly drew a line on her own chest from under one arm around under the other one.  
Ivanova closed her eyes as if it would deny the truth. She tried to say something but even she wasn't sure what it was.  
  
Six days later, Doctor O'Day was in a good mood. She had managed to get through to a hospital on Minbar that would take Captain Ivanova. It was out of war space.  
The strange thing was that Earthforce didn't know anything about this. It wasn't important enough for them.  
  
She didn't get much news about the war on Minbar. Communications were limited. But Ivanova had just gotten a short message from Acting Captain Lawrence. The message wasn't just more war news. Well, it was, but in the message it said that Earthforce had surrendered and they were going to let the telepaths fight it out themselves. Ivanova wasn't sure what to think of that. Actually she didn't mind that much. She hadn't thought they should get involved in the war in the first place. She was glad her ship was out.  
"Hey Susan." She looked up from her message.  
"John! Long time no see!"  
President Sheridan sat down in a chair next to her bed. Delenn pulled another one up.  
"How are you feeling?" he asked.  
She frowned thoughtfully. "Better. Boy or girl?" she asked, looking at Delenn's growing belly.  
"We've decided to wait until the baby is born to know," Delenn told her.  
"I'm telling you, Delenn, it's going to be a boy named David."  
"Or a girl named Legann," Delenn added.  
"Nope. It'll be a boy. I'm sure of it."  
"You don't know that for sure," Delenn told him.  
"I do."  
"Yea okay, I get the point," Ivanova broke in.  
"We heard that the doctors were able to reroute some of the nerves for your vital functions," Sheridan said.  
"That's a neat trick," she said. "Still can't feel anything below here."  
"Nerve rerouting is a very limited process," Delenn explained. "I'is still in the developmental stages."  
Ivanova nodded. "I'm going back to my ship pretty soon. Now that Earthforce isn't in the war anymore, it's even better timing."  
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"  
"There's no reason I should stay here."  
"Well for starters, it's a lot safer here," Delenn pointed out.  
"If I was going to try to be safe my whole life I never would have joined Earthforce."  
"No, I guess not."  
  
The Psi Corps had fallen apart. They had no records after the "Slate Erasing" incident during the war. The rogues had gotten what they wanted-- an independent home planet. It was a small world (about the size of Earth's moon), barely hospitable, but inhabitable with the use of pressure domes. They called it Zion, after Jewish home land.  
But Earth itself was in chaos. The Psi Corps had been a large part of what had held Earth under one government. The North American Consortium split off from the rest of the world. In the following ten years, so did Russian, British and Iberian Consortiums. Everything broke apart soon after that.  
But for the present, Captain Susan Ivanova returned to her ship.  
  
It was three months after the war ended when Ivanova's ship picked up a distress call.  
"Origin?"  
"Two light years away, sector 10."  
"Let's hear it."  
It was an automated message beacon. There was a little boy talking. It was a scratchy transmission, but the ship was clearly shaking in sudden, violent bursts.  
"If anyone gets this on time, please help. Our ship is being attacked by--I don't know what. I repeat, please help, but be careful."  
Ivanova looked up from the monitor. "Jump to sector 10. Lets hope it's not a trap."  
Lt. Sharif nodded.  
  
Doctor O'Day walked up to where the boy lay on the medical bed, the sole survivor.  
"He's unconscious, but in no immediate danger"  
"Good," said Captain Ivanova, "Have you been able to identify him?"  
"No, but he's Narn/human hybrid. Possible the first of his kind. He's also a telepath."  
Ivanova shook her head in amazement. "They seem to be everywhere these days."  
"Tell me about it."  
"Let me know if his condition changes."  
  
"Get out of bed right now!" She had programmed an audio message to be played as her alarm clock instead of the default alarm.  
She grunted and opened her eyes a crack. It was still dark outside. Well, duh it was still dark outside. Why does your bed always seem so inhospitable when you're trying to fall asleep, but when you wake up in the morning, you just want to sink into it?  
With great effort, she pushed herself onto her stomach and glanced at the clock. Suppose the alarm had malfunctioned and gone off early? No such luck this time.  
Over the course of her lifetime, Susan Ivanova had craftily thought up ways to make getting up faster. Throw ice down your back? Build a machine to punch you in the stomach every morning? Program the most obnoxious alarm ever and only be able to turn it off by pushing a button on the other side of the room and wake yourself up getting there?  
None of these things ever really appealed to her. They seemed like they would be effective, but not pleasant. She supposed she would just have breakfast then. She reached out and grabbing the seat of her wheelchair, and pulled it closer to her bed, which was very comfortable. Maybe she could sleep a couple of more minutes...  
Nope. Her comm link beeped. She picked it up off her table.  
"Ivanova. This better be good."  
"The boy's woken up. Urgent. Mind quakes."  
"I'll be right there. Ivanova out."  
She grumbled. They get someone on their ship and he has to be a telepath. At that moment, the ship shook.  
  
When the boy woke up, it became evident that they had rescued him from himself  
Doctor O'Day did everything she could to stop his mind quakes, but it was Captain Ivanova who came to the rescue.  
She tried to remember what Talia had said to Alisa Beldon, the young telepath they had found back on Babylon 5, when she first learned how to keep out others' thoughts.  
"Listen. Make a strong, stone wall between your mind and other peoples'. It keeps out their thoughts, it keeps your thoughts to yourself. It's very strong, remember. Nothing can get past it."  
The boy quieted and the mind quakes reduced to a vibration. Then they stopped. He breathed in sharply.  
"I suspected I was a telepath," he shuddered, "I thought I was prepared for when my talent surfaced." Then his eyes focused on Ivanova. "You were on Babylon 5."  
Ivanova muttered a curse about naive telepaths reading her mind.  
  
"Yes, I was. Do you know me?"  
"No."  
"Who are you?"  
"My name is G'Kem, if that's what you mean, and it probably is. I was raised by the Vorlons." He paused with a tone of pride in his voice. "Now they're gone, and I left their space to find my parents."  
"You're just a boy. Why is no one looking after you?" asked O'Day worriedly. She brushed a strip of black hair behind her ear, but it fell back over her face.  
"I'm eight years old."  
"That's too young, sonny," countered O'Day.  
  
She was as cool as a Minbari, yet every time Susan saw her she looked more and more human.  
"We heard that you have a Narn/Human child, but you can't locate his parents. I've been talking it over with John, and we have agreed that we will take in G'Kem as our own son, and a brother to David (John was right, it was a boy.)."  
Ivanova talked this over with G'Kem. Yes, he was beginning to see that finding his parents would not be possible, he was a bright child. But he still wanted to know who they were.  
She worked with him in further perfecting his mind blocks. "From now on, you are going to be living as a telepath where it isn't always safe for telepaths. You're smart, and I know you can keep your talent hidden as long as you don't give the Psi Corps any reason to suspect you." With a look of determination in her eyes, she said to G'Kem, "And pray to God they never do."  
  
The trip to Babylon 5 took three days. When the ship jumped at the gate, Ivanova could see the station. It looked as it always had, as she had only been gone a day.  
Ivanova took G'Kem in a shuttle into the docking bay.  
"Remember, no one is to know except those who already do." The boy nodded. He'd been told this a hundred times already, but Ivanova felt it still would never be enough.  
In the few weeks that G'Kem had been on the ship, he had taken Susan Ivanova as his guardian.  
"Come on, G'Kem," she laughed. He always wanted to push her wheelchair. "I can do it myself."  
He put his arms around her neck from behind. "What if I don't like Delenn and John? Can you take me?"  
"Maybe." She really meant no. "But you can definitely visit the ship."  
"Uh-hu."  
"You'll like them, I'm sure. Come on, we have to go." The boy nodded. "Ahh! Not so fast, G'Kem."  
As usual, the customs area of Babylon 5 was a zoo. G'Kem seemed to be terrified.  
"The wall. Nothing can get through it," Ivanova whispered over her shoulder, trying to reassure him. She squeezed his arm.  
Delenn and President John Sheridan watched the crowd intently for Captain Susan Ivanova with a little boy. They already had a baby son. Delenn held David in a front pack.  
"Hey guys!" It was Ivanova. Delenn and John ran up to her. G'Kem decided to play shy. He strangled Ivanova again from behind and looked up at the couple standing there.  
"Hello, I'm Delenn." She smiled.  
G'Kem walked around from behind Ivanova.  
"Nice to meet you," he said quietly.  
"Of course," answered Delenn.  
G'Kem whispered in Ivanova's ear.  
"He wants to get out of the crowds," she explained.  
"Then lets go," agreed Delenn.  
Sheridan and Delenn walked beside G'Kem who was still hiding shyly with Captain Ivanova and pushing her wheelchair. The way he did it was very cute. He was just the right height so that he could lean on the back and put his arms over.  
  
Lochley was sitting at the table with the rest of the gang, but looking quite left out. Whoever had thought to invite her to dinner had forgotten she had arrived after Ivanova left. That gave her something in common with G'Kem. Though the adults tried to include the boy, he looked bored also. Lochley smiled at him.  
The whole senior staff of both the station and she ship and had been invited. They had gone out to dinner as a reunion party and to celebrate G'Kem's arrival.  
G'Kem had finally warmed up to everyone. He wasn't constantly hanging on Ivanova.  
Their food came.  
"Ew, what's this?" asked G'Kem with a disgusted look.  
"What you ordered. Spaghetti with tomato sauce," answered O'Day.  
"Looks like guts and scabby blood."  
Everyone at the table laughed.  
"Believe me, there're a lot worse things as far as exotic food goes," said Sheridan between amused smiles.  
"I've never had it before. The Vorlons didn't feed me such things. Oh man--uh-oh--"  
"What?" asked Delenn.  
"Ech." He pressed his hand on his eyelid. Delenn got up and pulled him into a corner of the room.  
"Too many people in the room," he whined. "Inside my head."  
"I think we should go, G'Kem," she said.  
Delenn took him by the had and telling the group he wasn't feeling well, left the restaurant with him.  
"You need proper telepathy training," she told him back in their quarters, "You must learn to use your talent well."  
"Who's going to teach me?"  
"A Minbari telepath."  
But Delenn could see G'Kem was confused.  
"Susan told me to keep my talent hidden. Why is it so bad to use it?"  
"G'Kem, you are only a little boy. But one day, you will understand that not everyone wants the same thing in this world." Delenn stood up and walked into the bedroom. She unstrapped baby David from his front pack and put him in his crib. "You never got to officially meet your brother." She smiled.  
  
Delenn and John Sheridan traveled back to Minbar, their permanent home. G'Kem was taught the art of telepathy by Nemall, who also became the childrens' nanny. He learned quickly. A child raised by Vorlons is not lazy at anything, and that includes study.  
He was a quiet child, kept to himself. Didn't play with the Minbari children much. He played with his brother David.  
David Cardell Sheridan was very cute. He was two years old now, and he was teething. Sort of like that. Not exactly. A figure of speech. He'd gotten all his teeth long ago. G'Kem had been the first to notice him scratching and rubbing the back of his head. He gave David the nickname Bonehead, even though he was only a quarter Minbari and only had a ridge under his hair. Of course G'Kem didn't use the name around Delenn.  
John Sheridan was always away on presidential business. Sometimes Delenn went with him and Nemall watched the children. On one such occasion, David was toddling around the room and G'Kem was doing homework. When he was going over a math problem, David ran over to Nemall.  
"Nawa!" That was what David called her. He climbed into her lap. "T pwus 56 equash 101. Whas t?"  
"What was that?" she asked, surprised.  
"Erkie twy ta find..." his voice trailed off and he sucked in his drool. For some unknown reason, G'Kem had become Erkie in David's mind.  
Nemall picked David up and put him on the floor.  
"Try not to listen to his thoughts too hard, David."  
It was hard to tell if she was joking or not.  
  
Delenn put her hands on the table in front of her and looked at 15 year old G'Kem.  
"You have got to start 'hanging out' with other people besides David. It's not good for you to be by yourself so much."  
"I don't like people here. They think I'm weird. And even if they don't mind me, to their parents, I'm still the son of Starkiller. Even if he is the first president of the Earth Alliance."  
"How do you think I feel?" exclaimed Delenn. "I'm his wife, not to mention half human."  
G'Kem stalked back into his room. "I'm not a child!" he shouted, "Don't tell me who to keep company with!"  
G'Kem closed the door to his room and plunked himself down on his bed. Nemall had warned that it was bad luck to sleep on a horizontal bed, but his parents and brother did it and they didn't seem to have exceptionally bad luck. It was better for sitting on too.  
He looked around his room distastefully. It was too impersonal, just another Minbari designed room in the large building, disguised with his posters and furniture. He gritted his teeth and decided his favorite shape was a square.  
  
A new generation was being born. It was a generation of children of mundane and telepath parents. Without the Psi Corps matching up telepaths, people chose who they wanted.  
There were many more people using their telepathy now. More than there should have been. It was a legacy that the telepath war had left behind: If dust is used too much, the effects become permanent. They passed the active telepath gene on to their children as well, creating an artificially high number of telepaths. But who was real? The Vorlons had created telepaths in the first place.  
  
It was funny, Ivanova thought as she pinned the badge of the Rangers to her chest. She had always thought of the Shadow war as being over. But John had still carried his half death at Z'Ha'Dum with him afterwards, and with that death came his final death, and Ivanova wondered if the Shadow war was really over yet. 


	4. Around the World, Across the Stars

Around the World, Across the Stars  
  
It was all good that Delenn and John had adopted G'Kem, but he still didn't know who his real parents were. The feeling of longing really surfaced when Susan made contact with her mother. One morning, he woke up with a driving urge to locate them, or at least find out who they were.  
There were resources to find people. The most accessible, if not the most accurate, were the telepath family birth records put together after the war. If G'Kem knew anything about recent history it was that his telepathy most-likely came from his human half.  
He arranged for a search of the records for any people who had a partial DNA match to his own. It was unlikely that his human parent was on record as it was only personal accounts of births. Still, he thought, he must have some cousins somewhere who could be tracked back to his human parent.  
Getting the authorization to do this search took some doing. He was eager to use it as soon as he got it, but decided to do the search after he'd slept on the idea.  
Each dream you dream has a different emotion to it. An emotion unique to that night which you never experience again after that day. But somehow G'Kem remembered this emotion. Long-lost memories now resurfaced. His search for his parents had pushed them forward.  
Maybe he was three years old. Maybe four. He was still with the Vorlons at the time. He talked to the Vorlons, and they talked to him. And she talked to him, and she talked to the Vorlons. He was amazed that he remembered, but surprised he had forgotten so long. She was the one who had stood up to the Vorlons and demanded that they give him a name from his own heritage. Oh, she wasn't his mother, but still he was surprised that he had forgotten her for so long. If it wasn't for her brief visit with the Vorlons, he probably could never have adapted to life among his own kind so quickly. He remembered her with her red hair and solid black eyes.  
Fortunately, it was a weekend. Even after G'Kem woke up, he stayed in bed with his eyes closed, not daring to get up and risk the dream fading. He wracked his memory for the woman's name. After two and a half hours, he gave up. He walked drowsily to the computer terminal and pushed the data crystal in. He linked his DNA pattern to the data bank.  
There were more people than he had expected. A man on Earth, twins on Zion, a few references to archive articles and medical logs. One log caught his eye. It was a cross-reference to the personal log of Earthforce doctor Heather O'Day, dated May 17, 2264. He pulled it. It had once been encrypted, but it wasn't now. It was short, and meaningful only to a few people. G'Kem happened to be one of them.  
  
Doctor Heather O'Day, Personal Log From the ship's computer, I found the telekinetic who ripped Captain Ivanova's spinal cord. Her name is Darya Freeman. I don't plan to tell Susan though. This is between me and me.  
  
G'Kem could never have hated Heather O'Day more than at that moment. She had known all these years! She had never told Susan! How could she? He thought that they had been friends. If Susan ever found out she would probably kill O'Day before thinking of Darya Freeman.  
"What's the reference to the match of the DNA sample in question?" G'Kem asked the computer.  
"Darya Freeman."  
"Locate all references to the name Darya Freeman."  
One other reference appeared on the screen. It was the crew manifest from the rogue telepath ship Remarkable. There was a short background on Darya.  
  
Name: Darya Freeman DOB: 7/24/29 POB: Atchison, Kansas, North American Consortium, Earth Gender: female Teep rating: low P8 Teek rating: high K12  
  
Discovered at age 16. Brief period at Psi Corps, broke away in 2251. Joined telepath resistance in 2257.  
  
G'Kem gasped when he read the very last part. "Spent six months on Narn. Is reported to have been with the Vorlons for at least four. This is doubtful and Darya may not be entirely trustworthy."  
He read it again.  
"What's the relationship between Darya Freeman and the DNA in question?" he finally managed.  
"Parental."  
  
He was more nervous than he ever was before. He was going to contact Darya Freeman. He had to. He nervously told the computer to contact her. He got an audio.  
"Freeman. Who is this?"  
"Um... My name's G'Kem. This isn't a prank call. Is it true that you were with the Vorlons a few months after being on Narn?"  
The screen flashed on. G'Kem cringed slightly, thinking she might know what a Narn/human looked like.  
She had gray hair which had most likely been blond at one time. Her eyes were hazel. He had thought that his human parent might have eyes about that color. Sometimes he had wondered if his own would have ended up purple if theirs were blue! But of course eye color was not paint.  
No matter at the moment.  
"What business do you have asking that?" she snapped.  
"Well, it's just sort of that I'm half human and I was raised by Vorlons and-"  
"Who are you?"  
"Well, lets see, I don't really know. That's the problem. I've been trying to track down my biological parents and I was wondering..."  
"Wait a minute. What year were you born?"  
"About 2258."  
"Geez, what's been out to get me lately?"  
"Uh?"  
"Are you sure this isn't a joke you're playing on me?" she asked.  
"No joke. I swear."  
"Dana Richard?"  
It hit him hard. What did she mean?  
"What?" he exclaimed.  
"Sorry. If you are who I think you are, you wouldn't know anyway."  
"Who do you think I am?" he asked, thinking that he knew the answer.  
"Do you think I'm your mother?"  
G'Kem nodded tentatively.  
"Then I think you're my son, pardon me if I'm wrong."  
"You'll get no objection from me Ms. Freeman."  
"Why didn't you try to contact me?"  
"I just did. Why didn't you?"  
"I didn't know you were alive," she said.  
"Couldn't you have at least tried to find out?" he asked calmly.  
"Never mind." She stood up and paced back and forth, in and out of his view.  
"Well," said G'Kem, needing to get something else cleared up, "You were on the telepath ship Remarkable during the war?"  
"Yes. I was fighting for a good cause."  
"Did you have any contact with Captain Susan Ivanova?"  
"No."  
G'Kem couldn't sense her thoughts across a comm terminal, but he could tell she was denying something.  
"Are you sure you haven't heard of her?" At the moment, he had nothing much to lose. "Well I have."  
"How much?" she demanded.  
"I suppose if I'm your son than I can be honest with you. I care about her like a mother. And I care about what you did to her during the telepath war."  
She turned away from him.  
"Oh that," she said quietly.  
"So there you did do it."  
"It seems you already knew, what's there to admit?"  
"I've known about the event since I was eight, it was only this morning that I found out who did it. It's a bit strange talking to the very person that Susan would probably like to make miserable."  
"What are you going to do? Tell her where I live?"  
"No, I'm going to ask you to talk to her."  
"You want me to talk to her. To say I'm sorry for what I did? Well I suppose I could if you really wanted me to... I've done worse. It was war. I killed people, she killed people. I never killed her."  
"Darya--can I call you that? I'm not going to tell you what to do. Just talk to her, okay?"  
  
Susan Ivanova's comm line blinked 'live message.'  
"Answer."  
The woman on the screen pointed to her.  
"I think I remember you Ivanova."  
"Oh my god... What the hell is your problem? Can't you leave me alone? I'm surprised you aren't dead by now. But you might be if you weren't so lucky as to have this screen in front of you. To rephrase politely, what are you doing?" She smiled an exaggerated smile.  
"Would you really be interested?" Darya Freeman asked.  
"Probably not. And have you noticed what time it is?"  
"It's only midnight."  
"Well here it's eight."  
"That's early!"  
"I'm nocturnal."  
"Very funny."  
"Why am I arguing with you anyway?" Ivanova demanded.  
"Because I'm G'Kem Sheridan's mother."  
Ivanova whipped around.  
"WHAT?"  
"I said, I'm G'Kem's mother. Who called him that anyway? I like Narns but I don't care for their names."  
"Do we have to talk about this right now?"  
"No, not really, I suppose."  
"Good," said Ivanova cheerfully, "Then I'm just going to hit this little button here--"  
Darya never got to hear the end of her sentence. Ivanova cut the transmission.  
Ivanova probably felt the same way that Darya did earlier that day: "What is out to get me lately?" Not that she was going to believe that scum immediately, but she was a bit unsettled. Who might know something besides G'Kem? She turned back to the computer.  
"Contact David Sheridan."  
"Yes? Oh hi Susan."  
"Hi Steph. Is David there?"  
"No, actually. He'll be back in about an hour. Was there something you wanted?"  
"Oh, nothing really. Just tell him to get back to me."  
"Sure."  
David's wife Stephanie was half human, half Minbari, a hybrid by genetics. Because of this she looked a bit different than Delenn had ended up half human with the chrysalis. Stephanie had almost a full Minbari bone with hair growing out of it like plants in a rock. Her hair was blond, and she smoothed it down so if you saw her from a distance, all you could see was the top of her bone. On top of her head all her hair grew from the base of the bone, all around. If she cut it or tied it up she had a bald spot on the top of her head. When she was around Humans she brushed it onto her forehead and did end up looking similar to Delenn.  
Delenn. She might know something.  
"Delenn," she told the computer.  
"Yes?"  
"It's Susan. I need to ask you something."  
Delenn put on her visual.  
"What is it?"  
"Well," Ivanova began, "G'Kem... he found, well, I don't know. I think G'Kem found his birth mother." Ivanova wasn't sure how Delenn would react.  
"He did. I just got a message from him a few minutes ago. It's very strange, I know. I said he was feeling jealous that you had found your mother."  
"But do you know who she is?" Ivanova demanded.  
"No."  
"Darya Freeman!"  
"Am I supposed to know her?"  
"She's the telekinetic I ran into during the war! G'Kem's mother!"  
"In Valen's name," Delenn breathed.  
  
Ivanova complained.  
"I invited you to my birthday party, that's all," G'Kem said. "If you don't want to come because Darya's going to be there..." It seemed sort of like a 'so there' threat, but G'Kem wasn't sure how to finish it.  
"G'Kem, I want to come to your party. But just keep your mother away from me."  
"What?"  
"Haven't you been listening to a word I said? You may think she's a nice person but I don't want to have anything to do with her."  
"Oh come on Susan. Just forget it. She was really mad when your people caught her. It wasn't anything personal."  
Ivanova glared at G'Kem.  
"How can I forget when I'm reminded every minute of every day what she did to me thirty years ago? How can I forget if the only reason I managed to keep my career was that Earthforce was too involved in the aftermath of the telepath war to notice me before I managed to prove myself? How can I forget, G'Kem?"  
"Okay, okay, you don't have to have anything to do with her. Just come."  
  
Sophie walked up to her daughter.  
"Susan, I was talking to Darya."  
"You were? Great, now you're socializing with her. What a creep."  
"I just found out something really fascinating about her."  
"Uh-hu."  
"It's the reason she was with the Vorlons. She was one of the people that they abducted and kept until the 'time was right.' They gave her telepathy and telekinesis. She wasn't with the Vorlons for a couple of years, and she met G'Kem's father on Narn. She ended up getting pregnant but was called back by the Vorlons. When they went beyond the Rim, she was separated from G'Kem. But the interesting thing is this." Sophie handed a small object to Ivanova.  
"American 20th century flyer wings. Model for the Earthforce shoulder patch. Where'd she get these?"  
"They're hers."  
"Amelia Earhart. That's not her name on it."  
"No one on Earth had her name on file and she started calling herself Darya Freeman."  
"Alright, but what's the big deal with this?"  
"She was a pilot. In 1937, she attempted to fly around the world but somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, the Vorlons got her airplane."  
"Good for her."  
"I just find that really fascinating. A living person from the 20th century," insisted Sophie.  
"If it was anyone else, I'd go up and shake their hand. Her, I don't care."  
"Come on, Susan!"  
"She shouldn't be here."  
"Don't say that so loud."  
"I don't care," Ivanova mumbled.  
Maybe she was interested, but she was too stubborn to talk to Darya.  
"I want to go ask G'Kem something," she said. She found him talking to David.  
"Hi Susan," David said.  
"Can I talk to G'Kem for a minute?"  
"Okay."  
Ivanova turned to G'Kem.  
"Why didn't you tell me you went back in time?"  
"Because I didn't think you would want to know when you were going to die. Life energy acts strangely when it's not the energy you've had from birth. It doesn't quite fit into your biofunction as naturally. That was why John died so quickly, not as naturally. That'll probably happen to you too. You're not only living on Marcus's life energy, you're living on mine. I only gave you enough to live long enough to save Ganya, and a little longer."  
"I understand," she said quietly, "I guess I won't live much longer then."  
"I don't think so."  
"It's about time. Who wants to live forever?"  
G'Kem nodded. He wondered just how much extra life energy he had given her. Long enough for her to spend some time with her mother? Long enough to see David and Stephanie's daughter born? Long enough to see the turn of the century? He knew the answer. She would live the time in her life that G'Kem had taken off the end of his. It wasn't that much.  
  
Epilogue  
  
The Vorlons will ask: "So you think you have a destiny?" Very few have one that concerns the old races. They will ask: "Who are you?" Very few people have an answer that they can put into words. G'Kem could have asked Susan Ivanova and the answer could have been "I'm this." Nothing you can put into words. Her destiny concerned the Vorlons--would have concerned the Vorlons if they knew. It concerned the Shadows. Most anything that concerns the Shadows concerns the Vorlons as well. A boy raised by Vorlons couldn't help wondering: Who was Susan Ivanova? What did she do? She helped defeat the Shadows--the Vorlons would be interested in that. She helped defeat the Shadows several times over. Who was she? Sometimes she had been hard to get along with, but she was a lovable person, even though she had been out of the practice of loving other people for so long.  
G'Kem wondered if a person's soul enters them the moment they're conceived or the moment they're born. He hoped it was when they were born because then he could retain the belief that maybe Susan was still around in David and Stephanie's daughter Caroline, who was born a week after Susan died. He couldn't prove that, but he could take comfort in the fact that he couldn't disprove it either. That secret was only for the triluminary to know. 


End file.
